Entrepreneurship Education & Its Impact on Engineering Student Outcomes: The Role of Program Characteristics and Faculty Beliefs

National Collegiate Inventors And Innovators Alliance, Hadley MA

Investigators

Abstract

Over the past decade, entrepreneurship has emerged as a critical aspect of engineering education. Driven by changes in the global economy, entrepreneurship is one of the fastest growing areas of course development in engineering programs, with hundreds of courses in entrepreneurship now available to engineering students. However, we know little about program characteristics, learning goals, assessment practices, and student impacts. This multidisciplinary research team will identify the characteristics of engineering-centric entrepreneurship education programs that enroll engineering students, starting with an in-depth examination of three well-established programs. Then these results will be used to conduct an inventory of at least 50 additional programs across the U.S. Information collected will identify and define program types, innovative teaching methods, student learning goals, and assessment practices. In addition, faculty beliefs about engineering entrepreneurship education will be studied and interviews with entrepreneurship faculty will explore what they believe students should learn, how entrepreneurship should be taught, and how students should be assessed. This data will be used to develop a survey that will be administered to faculty who teach in 50 other programs, and then the survey will be generally available. The results of this research, which will include guidelines for best practices in teaching, program development, and assessment, will have great significance for educating engineers who will be competitive in the global economy. Results will be widely disseminated using network of the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA) and will include workshops and training materials for faculty, dissemination of tools for evaluation of learning outcomes, and detailed information on the status of entrepreneurship education programs across the country. This will provide resources for engineering educators as they modernize the curriculum and will benefit students who will have wider access to quality engineering entrepreneurship education options.